Background
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core principles at UNDP: we value diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, we foster inclusion as a way of ensuring all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, and we ensure equity and fairness in all our actions. Taking a ‘leave no one behind’ approach to our diversity efforts means increasing representation of underserved populations. People who identify as belonging to marginalized or excluded populations are strongly encouraged to apply. Learn more about working at UNDP including our values and inspiring stories. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN development system and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work carried out at headquarter, regional and country office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum, from deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. Within this context, UNDP invests in a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan.
Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Bureau (CB) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.
UNDP has been a leading advocate and the largest UN implementing agency for the energy transition at global, regional and national levels for several decades. UNDP’s Energy Portfolio supports policy makers with high quality data to make informed decisions on selecting and designing cost‐effective public instruments to promote private investment in clean energy, contributing to SDG 7 and in line with UNDP’s ‘signature solution’ on energy. UNDP has a successful track record in using policy instruments to de‐risk and catalyze investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy access projects, including a series of sustainable energy initiatives specifically adapted to the needs (and resilient recovery) of fragile and crisis‐impacted countries.
Under the new Strategic Plan (2022‐2025), energy is one of UNDP’s six signature solutions – alongside poverty and inequality, governance, resilience, environment, and gender equality ‐ to support countries towards three directions of change: structural transformation, leaving no one behind and resilience. Scaled‐up programming efforts on energy access and the energy transition will be coordinated under the newly established Sustainable Energy Hub (SEH), which represents parts of the organization’s systematic and programmatic approach to respond to the energy and climate change agendas. As per UNDP’s new Strategic Plan 2022‐2025, the first objective of UNDP is increasing energy access for those furthest behind. By speeding up investment in distributed renewable energy solutions, especially for those hardest to reach and in crisis contexts, it aims to increase access to clean and affordable energy for 500 million people by the year 2025.
Second, UNDP will work to accelerate the clean energy transition and access through systems changes that support inclusive, green and resource‐efficient economies. This work will capitalize on technological gains, clean energy innovations and new business models in the energy sector.
Through the Sustainable Energy Hub, UNDP will harness networks, experience and innovation to scale‐up energy programming efforts and shape policy, building on the existing portfolio of energy projects, covering over 118 countries to harness clean energy and support the energy access and transition as well as on UNDP’s Climate Promise, UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub and UNDP’s Digital offer. UNDP will also work with Governments in program countries as they recover and build forward better from COVID19 and with investors to unlock and harness public and private finance to power progress towards multiple SDGs.
Job Purpose and Organizational Context
The Policy Energy Advisor is functionally part of the Sustainable Energy Hub, based in New York, USA, and reports to the UNDP BPPS Director of the Sustainable Energy Hub. The Policy Energy Advisor will facilitate close collaboration, partnerships, and resource mobilization within the U.S. energy ecosystem, including organizations such as NREL and the Rockefeller Foundation. Additionally, the advisor will work closely with the UN Permanent Mission to strengthen partnerships with donors. S/he will provide intellectual and strategic leadership, as well as technical guidance, on sustainable energy issues for UNDP and its regional and country offices. The advisor will also represent UNDP in international energy landscape such as initiative Mission 300 and in the broader humanitarian-development nexus, engaging with organizations such as UN Energy, IRENA, IEA, GEAPP, SE4ALL, the World Bank, ESMAP, bilateral partners, and external experts in the energy for development sector.
In collaboration with other advisors and specialists in the Regional Hubs, s/he is responsible for leading the provision of technical expertise and policy advisory services to country offices and supporting the implementation of the regional initiatives. S/he responds to requests from Country Offices under the guidance of the Director of the Sustainable Energy Hub, and in collaboration with corporate support providers, such as the Climate, Nature, Chemical and Waste, Finance Hubs. Working to ensure quality and coherent policy advisory services within their region, as well as alignment with the Strategic Plan, the Policy Energy Advisor advances the credibility and recognition of UNDP’s capabilities in this knowledge domain and associated community of practice.
UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across units, functions, teams, and projects in multidisciplinary teams in order to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.
Duties and Responsibilities
Summary of Key Functions:
- Substantive leadership and quality assurance of policy advisory services
- Coordination and delivery of technical assistance, and policy development
- Substantive leadership for content development and curation of tools and resources, from across UNDP’s network of expertise
- Knowledge management and community of practice networking
- Representation, advocacy, and partner engagement for effective policy positioning globally
- Strengthen resource mobilization and partnership to identifying and securing financial support to scale up the existing work on sustainable energy for development.
1. Substantive leadership and quality assurance of policy advisory services.
- Innovation, Strategic Leadership, Program Support and Policy Advice to scale up UNDP’s energy portfolio and to position UNDP within global/regional policy contexts like G7, G20, and G77
- Develop and define strategic approaches for UNDP’s work on sustainable energy and energy finance, leveraging UNDP’s existing global work under the Sustainable Energy Hub, ensuring alignment with the global energy landscape, including initiatives like Mission 300.
- Engage with key organizations such as UN Energy, IRENA, IEA, GEAPP, SE4ALL, the World Bank, ESMAP, bilateral partners, and external experts within the energy-for-development sector to amplify the UNDP energy work on the ground.
- Support in the coordination of Sustainable Energy Hub team and the collaboration with all the BPPS Hubs and across GPN.
- Advise country offices in developing and implementing strategic energy policy frameworks and policy-related interventions within energy programs and projects, aligning with global goals and priorities.
- Maintain a comprehensive view of the global energy sector by tracking investments, creating a robust database on private investment plans and capital flows, and ensuring strategic insights into market trends.
- Identify key entry points to integrate energy issues into regional and country-specific strategies aimed at achieving the SDGs, in line with the Energy Moonshot of the UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025.
- Offer policy advisory services that respond to country office needs and amplify their impact on the ground, ensuring operational strategies align with UNDP’s broader energy goals.
- Work closely with Regional Bureau’s Advisors based in New York to ensure timely and multi-disciplinary policy support tailored to country needs, ensuring relevance and effectiveness in response efforts.
- Collaborate substantively with COs and Regional Programs to achieve global/regional/CO strategic goals and plans by supporting relevant regional initiatives and promoting synergies with the regional programs.
- Support UNDP’s work to assist countries at the regional level in designing energy and climate policies to support energy access priorities, promote the energy transition and foster low carbon growth in the context of their sustainable development efforts.
2. Coordination and delivery of technical assistance, and policy development.
- Facilitate the engagement of global policy advisors and technical experts from the SDG Integrator cadre to provide advisory services in the energy sector.
- Contribute to quality assurance and standard setting in the:
- Delivery of policy advisory services working with the HQ Advisors, Regional Hubs and Country Offices.
- Prioritization, planning and fielding of missions, in collaboration with other BPPS teams, for assessment and policy design to follow-up at country level.
- Substantive caliber, coherence, results-focused policy development and regular reporting of results achieved.
- Lead the formulation of funding proposals, donor briefings and presentations in support of UNDP resource mobilization efforts.
- Lead the mobilization of multi-disciplinary stakeholders to advance private sector and public-private-partnership projects to bankable stages, raising capital, and accelerating project closure.
3. Substantive leadership for content development and curation of tools and resources, from across UNDP’s network of expertise.
- Provide high-level technical expertise in identifying tools, developing methodologies and producing knowledge management products linked to energy policy;
- Leads in content development for regional/CO tools and knowledge products through the analysis of data, case evidence, and research findings in accordance with corporate standards;
- Contribute to the identification and scoping of technical issues warranting collaboration with HQ and regional teams to research, develop and share knowledge-based tools, such as policy positions/practice notes/concept papers and other research-based products to influence/advance policy dialogue in the knowledge domain and present UNDP’s knowledge assets and capabilities at global and regional forums;
- Work closely with policy teams in HQ to advance research, testing and roll-out of newly commissioned policy/business development initiatives, by providing the regional perspective/specificities as well as experience-based insights on what is of most practical value for national counterparts and regional leaders;
- Design and deliver training on programming tools including by developing training packs for COs to facilitate innovation learning, foster and encourage energy policy innovation and continuous improvement to enhance program delivery.
- Provide leadership in innovative financing mechanisms to attract private capital to energy systems.
- Build an unparalleled database on private investment plans and flows into energy sector.
4. Facilitate knowledge management and community of practice networking.
- Contribute to shaping UNDP’s research agenda and influencing strategy in the energy arena through continuous analysis, documentation, codification of regional results/lessons learned;
- Curate and leverage regional data, case evidence and research findings to distill pivotal lessons for UNDP;
- Present and showcase UNDP knowledge in the energy sector at high-level fora, and ensure that UNDP’s knowledge assets are contextualized in relevant and impactful ways in multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral arenas;
- Advocate and enable South-South facilitation of exchanges and experiences sharing where valuable;
- Support the capacity development of UNDP staff in application of tools and practices;
- Development and strengthening of linkages with energy community of practice, both inside and outside of the UN system.
5. Representation, advocacy, and partner engagement for effective policy positioning globally.
- Act as a technical representative of UNDP, in the region, to advocate the application of ground-breaking sustainable energy approaches, especially as an integrated approach to achieving the SDGs, with a view to deepen related political commitment and related reforms;
- Represent UNDP within engagements in interagency coordination in sustainable energy policy areas;
- Provide technical advice on relationship management of regional partners and resource mobilization in line with UNDP priorities and corporate guidelines;
- Provide technical advice on mobilizing and fostering external partnerships behind regional initiatives;
- Manage the building of strategic alliances and partnerships, especially with key think tanks and non-governmental organizations;
- Identify and develop clear long term strategic partnerships with private finance institutions (IFIs, DFIs, etc.) and organizations for the sustainability of the energy sector.
- Ensure UNDP Representation at technical linter-agency meetings, academic conferences, donor consultations and other events on Energy.
6. Strengthen resource mobilization and partnership to identify and secure financial support to scale up the existing work on sustainable energy for development.
- Lead efforts to identify potential donors and funding opportunities, to support the expansion of UNDP’s sustainable energy initiatives such as engaging with UN Permanent Missions.
- Establish and nurture strategic partnerships with multilateral development banks, international financial institutions, private sector entities, and philanthropic organizations to mobilize resources for energy projects such as World Bank, AfDB, IDB, ICF etc.
- Collaborate with COs to develop compelling funding proposals, ensuring alignment with donor priorities and global energy goals, particularly related to energy access, the energy transition, and low-carbon development.
- Foster partnerships with IFIs, DFIs and climate funds, to unlock innovative financing for scalable, transformative energy solutions.
- Engage with UNDP networks to align resource mobilization strategies with broader organizational goals.
- Organize and participate in high-level meetings, forums, and donor roundtables to advocate for increased investment in sustainable energy, positioning UNDP as a leader in the field.
- Leverage UNDP’s existing energy work to attract additional resources for new, high-impact projects in emerging markets, particularly in underserved and vulnerable regions.
The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.
Competencies
Core
Achieve Results:
- Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact.
Think Innovatively:
- Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems.
Learn Continuously:
- Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences.
Adapt with Agility:
- Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands.
Act with Determination:
- Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results.
Engage and Partner:
- Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration.
Enable Diversity and Inclusion:
- Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity.
Cross-Functional & Technical competencies
2030 Agenda: Partnerships – Sustainable Energy Hub:
- Energy: Energy Efficiency.
2030 Agenda: Partnerships – Sustainable Energy Hub:
Business Development Knowledge Generation:
- Ability to research information and to turn it into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need. Ability to apply existing concepts to new situations, and to develop new concepts to generate workable solutions and new approaches. Knowledge of relevant concepts, conceptual models, and theories that can be useful in addressing new situations.
Business Direction and Strategy – System Thinking:
- Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.
Business Management – Portfolio Management:
- Ability to select, prioritise and control the organization’s programmes and projects in line with its strategic objectives and capacity Ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives with regular activities for optimal return on investment. Knowledge and understanding of key principles of project, programme, and portfolio management.
Business Development – Integration within the UN:
- Ability to identity, and integrate capacity and assets of the UN system, and engage in joint work; knowledge of the UN System and ability to apply this knowledge to strategic and/or practical situations.
Business Management – Communication:
- Communicate in a clear, concise, and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience.
- Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media and other appropriate channels.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
- Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Energy, Sustainable Development, Economics, Environment, Finance, other relevant field is required, or
- A first-level university degree (Bachelor´s degree) in the areas mentioned above in combination with additional 2 years of qualifying experience, will be given due consideration in lieu of Master´s degree.
Experience:
- A minimum of 10 years (with master´s degree) or 12 years (with bachelor´s degree) of relevant experience in Development in either public sector (national or multilateral, including UN), private (academia, non-governmental sector, corporate), with an increasing level of responsibility.
- Proven experience with excellent negotiating and communication skills and ability to mobilize support from a wide range of partners (public, private, academic, civil society, business community leaders) is desired.
- Proven track record of experience in management and resource mobilization in development projects is desired.
- Working experience in the field is required.
- Country level experience advising governments and other relevant national actors on energy matters would be an asset.
Language Requirements:
- Fluency in English is required.
- Fluency in French is required.
- Working knowledge of another UN language is highly desirable
Note:
Please note that continuance of appointment beyond the initial 12 months is contingent upon the successful completion of a probationary period.
Disclaimer
Under US immigration law, acceptance of a staff position with UNDP, an international organization, may have significant implications for US Permanent Residents. UNDP advises applicants for all professional level posts that they must relinquish their US Permanent Resident status and accept a G-4 visa, or have submitted a valid application for US citizenship prior to commencement of employment.
UNDP is not in a position to provide advice or assistance on applying for US citizenship and therefore applicants are advised to seek the advice of competent immigration lawyers regarding any applications.
Applicant information about UNDP rosters
Note: UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement. We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.
Non-discrimination
UNDP has a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual exploitation and misconduct, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.
UNDP is an equal opportunity and inclusive employer that does not discriminate based on race, sex, gender identity, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, age, language, social origin or other status.
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Level of Education: Bachelor Degree
Work Hours: 8
Experience in Months: No requirements